Our Services
What are my resolution options?
There are a number of possible options for resolving your IRS liabilities. Your financial situation will largely dictate the available options. We will thoroughly review your tax and financial situation and suggest the best alternative for you.
Installment Agreement
The most common resolution option, this allows you to make affordable monthly payments to the IRS to pay back taxes. These payment plans can have variable payments based on seasonal income if necessary. In some cases, you may not even have to pay back the entire amount you owe, but simply make payments until the statute of limitations expires on the debt (called a Partial Payment Installment Agreement).
Offer in Compromise
This is the infamous “pennies on the dollar” program you may have heard about. Under this program, the IRS may accept less than what you owe as payment in full. This program has rigid qualification criteria, and most taxpayers simply do not qualify – do not be fooled by a salesman with another firm making promises that you will qualify for this option.
Currently Not Collectible
If you lack the financial resources to repay your tax debt, we may be able to get your tax accounts placed into an uncollectible status. This status can last for one or more years, and the IRS will not come after you when you are in this status.
Penalty Abatements
You may be eligible for a reduction in your penalties. We can prepare and negotiate an application for penalty relief on your behalf, and seek to get the overall amount of your debt reduced.
Lien Negotiation
We can negotiate with the IRS to have assets you own released from under the Federal Tax Lien, which may enable you to either sell or borrow against the asset in order to pay the tax debt.
Bankruptcy
As a last resort, taxes can sometimes be wiped out by filing Chapter 7. Or as an alternative to people who do not qualify for Chapter 7 (or where Chapter 7 is not advisable due to other reasons), a Chapter 13 can help consolidate all taxes owed and if possible, also eliminate some of it. Interest on some of your tax liabilities and the penalties will stop accruing in a Chapter 13. Even if you weren’t actually considering bankruptcy, the fact that we are knowledgeable about bankruptcy laws can be used to your advantage because we can often show the IRS why it would make sense for them to accept your offer vs. you filing for bankruptcy, in which case they could get paid either nothing or much less than what you owe.
Non-Filers
If you have fallen behind in filing tax returns for several years, chances are you don’t even know how much you owe anymore. For example, I often get calls from people who have not filed a return in more than 10 years. They are afraid to come out and this fear stops them from doing anything about their situation -and so things just continue to get worse. When you hire me to help you solve your IRS problems, I will advise you on how to move forward to get back into compliance with the IRS.
Innocent Spouse Relief
A lot of married couples are unaware that filing a joint tax return creates “joint and several liability” for both spouses. That means both you and your spouse are both individually and jointly liable to the IRS for any underpayment.
Innocent Spouse Relief allows one of two spouses responsible for an IRS tax debt to be absolved of all, or part of, a tax debt that arose for a tax year that a joint return was filed. There are three types of Innocent Spouse Relief: (a) Innocent Spouse Relief: If your spouse did something wrong on his/her tax return and you did not know or had reason to know of such at the time your joint return filed, you may be relieved of responsibility for paying tax, interest, and penalties. (b) Relief by Separation of Liability: Under this type of relief, you allocate the understatement of tax (plus interest and penalties) on your joint return between you and your spouse. You may be eligible for this if you are no longer married or are now legally separated; (c) Equitable Relief: If you do not qualify for either regular innocent spouse relief or separation of liability, you may still be relieved of responsibility for tax, interest, and penalties when doing so is “equitable” under the circumstances. This is fact-specific, and the IRS takes several factors into account when the first 2 types of relief are not available to the taxpayer.
Disclaimer: Financial Recovery Law is a law firm but we are NOT your attorney until you have retained our services. Therefore, information on this website is for informational purposes only and should not be relied upon as legal advice. You can request a free tax analysis by calling our office at 866-477-7772.